Alfalfa cropping has been considered an efficient method of increasing soil fertility.Usually nitrogen increase in root nodules is considered to be the major beneficial effect.A 21-year time series (five sampling periods) of alfalfa cultivation plots on a loess soil,initially containing illite and chlorite,in Lanzhou of northwestern China was selected to investigate the relationships among alfalfa cropping,soil potassium (K) content and soil clay minerals.The results indicated that soil K significantly accumulated after cropping,with a peak value at about 15 years,and decreased afterwards.The accumulated K was associated with the K increase in the well-crystallized illite,which was not extracted by the traditional laboratory K extraction methods in assessing bioavailability.The steep decline in soil K content after 15-year cropping was in accord with the observed fertility loss in the alfalfa soil.Plant biomass productivity peaked at near 9 years of culture,whereas soil K and clay minerals continued to increase until cropping for 15 years.This suggested that K increased in the topsoil came from the deep root zone.Thus alfalfa continued to store K in clays even after peak production occurred.Nitrogen did not follow these trends,showing a general decline compared with the native prairie soils that had not been cropped.Therefore,the traditional alfalfa cropping can increase K content in the topsoil.